The Spectator staff at VSU racked up at the Georgia College Press Association conference and awards banquet last Saturday. The staff won nine GCPA awards, including the best website and the most improved newspaper.

Individual awards won by members of the Spectator include third best review by Julia Rodriquez, third best sports story by Shane Thomas, third best editorial by Jordan Barela, and third best news article based on investigative reporting by John Preer, Tatyana Phelps and Jordan Barela.

The Spectator also won third in photography excellence, third for best campus community service for a feature, and second for best campus community service for an editorial.

The conference, which is held annually in Athens, was attended by two and four year colleges from all around Georgia including larger institutions such as the University of Georgia and Georgia Tech, as well as smaller schools such as Abraham Baldwin Agricultural College.

Students were able to attend seminars held by journalism professionals on a variety of topics including sports writing, storytelling and transparency. VSU professor, Dr. Pat Miller, was at the conference helping students learn about transparency between journalists and government officials.

Editor-in-Chief of the Spectator, Jordan Barela, said that he was proud of the staff and their awards.

“The whole staff has worked extremely hard to become the best news organization that we can become,” Barela said. “It is very humbling to lead a staff of such talented and bright editors and writers.”

Before the banquet, students went to a mixer held at the offices of the University of Georgia’s student newspaper, The Red and Black, where they met other student journalists from across the state in order to share ideas and learn new techniques.

“The staff of the Spectator should be extremely proud to receive this measure of recognition from GCPA,” said Dr. Ted Geltner, editorial adviser to the newspaper. “Universities much larger than VSU compete in this contest, and for our news organization to perform so well shows that we have a tremendous amount of journalistic talent on this campus.”